Make no mistake about it – enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbing away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagine to be true.
– Adyashanti, The End of Your World
Yes, enlightenment is a falling away of our familiar world. Of what we imagine to be true.
Interestingly, for many of us, that also includes trauma. Traumas are created and held in place by what we imagine to be true. So traumas surface so these imaginations we imagine to be true can be eradicated.
At some point in the awakening process, these traumas surface to be seen, felt, loved, and held in presence. They surface so we get to examine them and see how the mind creates them. We get to see how body contractions and imaginations create traumas, and we get to see each component for what it is. Sensations as sensations and imagination as imagination.
This can be challenging beyond what we have experienced before. Our habitual reaction is to shrink away from these traumas, and that’s very understandable. Evolution and culture both tells us to avoid what’s painful. And now we are instead invited to hold these traumas in presence. And examine them. We are invited to face what we have spent a lifetime avoiding. We are invited to re-experience the pain of the trauma as we enter into it, and meeting it in a very different way from before.
This is a very real part of the awakening process. It’s often not encountered until we have gone through a honeymoon phase in the awakening process. And it’s often not mentioned in the initial sales pitch for practices that may lead us into an awakening process. Both life and teachers tend to wait with presenting this to us, for good reasons. If we knew, we may not be that interested. Not that we really have a choice. Life will have its way with us, and this is part of it.
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Initial draft……
Yes, enlightenment is a falling away of our familiar world. Of what we imagine to be true.
Interestingly, for many of us, that also includes trauma. Traumas are created and held in place by what we imagine to be true. So these trauma surface to be seen, felt, loved, and held in presence. They surface so the stories holding them in place can be examined. They surface so we get to see how our minds create the painful stories creating the trauma, and we get to see that they are imaginations. We get to see how traumas are created by a combination of sensations and body contractions, and imaginations held as true.
For some of us, this is challenging beyond what we have experienced before. Our habitual reaction is to shrink away from these traumas, and now we are invited to hold them in presence and examine them. We are invited to face what we have spent a lifetime avoiding. We are invited to re-experience the pain of the trauma as we enter into it, and meeting it in a very different way from before.
That’s where the deep healing takes place.